Blood And Water (3 page)

He crossed over Main Street and cycled the fifteen-minute journey without noticing the rain that had started to spit at him. He felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket but ignored it. It could wait. But its presence was like a burning coal against his skin.

Had it been it worth it, he asked himself as the rain, heavier now, peppered his scalp. The drops streaming down his face could easily have been mistaken for tears. How had he let it come to this?

But they did have a lot of fun together, he and Orla – well, the sad part was that he actually thought she had enjoyed herself too.

“What a fool!” he whispered into the rain, letting the breeze take his words.

He should have known it was too good to be true. As his grandmother had told him so many times when he was young: “
If it looks too good then it is too good
.” How right was she? Thank God she was dead, though. She’d never forgive him for this. Small mercies, eh?

The lights turned red at Hillview Road and he slowed to a stop.

He stared blindly down the pretty tree-lined street that led to the beach and remembered the first time he had seen her. She was dancing, well, gyrating really, on a table top at the club. They were all at it, the guys as well as the girls, but she was the master: every part of her body moved in fully synchronised rhythm. She looked absolutely incredible and she knew it too, knew they were all watching her. It was only his second or third time in the exclusive members-only venue. That night he was with Gillian, a great girl with a face as sweet as sugar and a body made to touch. But, with Orla, there was no real comparison: she was out of this world. Out of his world anyway. Her long, sculpted, chocolate-brown hair reflected the dull glow of the lights in the darkness of the club which intentionally made it hard to see faces that didn’t want to be seen. Easy to keep secrets. And, when she lifted her head, everything about her seemed to shine. She gleamed: her eyes, her hair, the soft sheen of her skin, the sweet swell of her lips, the long undulating journey of her body from her head to her stiletto-clad feet. She was breath-taking and in the company of Gillian he did his best to ignore her, but oh my God that body was impossible to deny.

Yes, he would always remember the first time he saw her. He would have done well to remember his first instinctive thought. She’s so outta my league, he had told himself. And he was right: she was.

Months later, long after Gillian had ceased to entertain him he almost wept when Orla approached him. Her tall, elegant and seductive frame bee-lined towards him through the red-and-yellow haze of the lights. Like the cartoon cliché of the geek, he actually looked around, first left then right to make sure it wasn’t someone behind him that she was targeting.

Me?
he mouthed silently, pointing towards his chest with his thumb.

She nodded, amused by his reaction, and crossed the last few feet between them with a slow smouldering smile designed to disarm and hypnotise.

Without offering her name, she hooked her thumbs through the loops of his jeans and leaned in to kiss his lips. Forward and delectable, she felt soft but demanding and he responded accordingly.

“Orla!” she shouted into his ear.

“Cormac,” he replied with a feeble swallow, amazed by what was happening to him.

“I know,” she said, grinning, and he nearly choked. “You like us brunettes.”

It was more of a statement than a question, to which he raised his eyebrows in response, amazed that she had even noticed him, never mind who he was with.

Again, she leaned straight in to kiss him. “You taste of JD,” she remarked, licking her lips.

His confidence boosted, he took a nonchalant swig of his drink, allowing his lips to soak up the smooth woody liquor before lowering his glass to swallow and letting her kiss him again, enjoying the warm fuzzy haze that followed.

“Come on, let’s dance,” she invited, leading him by the hand to the small dance floor. She moved expertly around him, sweeping her hands over his torso, grinding her hips into his, making him see and feel her excitement. Gyrating she dipped and swung herself low, using the loops of his waistband to drag herself slowly back up, pausing briefly at his groin. A titillating move heightened by his intoxication. She was gorgeous. He was lucky.

But when the lights came on she left alone. She was like a whirlwind: a tornado that had torn through his senses. He returned to the club the following night and the following weekend but it was two weeks before she walked through those doors again, this time in a very tight and very short leather skirt and strapless top that left almost nothing to his imagination – just enough to make his heart skip and his groin tingle.

He turned his back to the door and watched her in the mirror as she descended the few steps into the club then paused, scanned the room, saw him and smiled. He assumed she would play hard to get, maybe ignore him and delay their undoubted encounter, make him work for her attentions, but she came straight to him.

“Waiting long?” she asked.

“Only about three weeks.”

“Sorry it took so long, babe, but I’m here now,” she said with a sultry smile and, draping her arms about his neck, asked, “Now, where did we leave off?”

She pulled him in to her and held him tight. He felt her heart beat and her hips move against him. She smelt of tangerine and vanilla, an aroma he discovered ignited each and every sense in his body. He could just about contain himself. She was incredible. He returned her fevered embrace with urgency. Taking hold of her face he brought his lips to hers and kissed her. She responded with roaming hands that made their way from his shoulders, down his back and inside his shirt to massage and awaken the flesh on his chest . . . The memory hurt.

A short beep of a passing car tugged him back to the present.

One of the most disappointing things about the whole sordid debacle, Cormac thought as he set off again and pedalled his way down Strand Road, was that he actually thought they were good together. He thought together they ticked a lot of boxes. Fun:
tick
. Laughter:
tick
. Conversation:
tick
. Sex:
tick, tick tick
. Damn, they even looked good together, although he had to admit she tipped the balance on that one.

By the time he reached his apartment the rain had stopped and a few weak spears of light fought valiantly to break through the grey muteness of the afternoon. He chained his bike to the railings, took the bottle from the carrier and went inside. His apartment was elegant, bright and beautiful. The first floor of the Georgian building was all his. Heading straight for the living room, he pulled back the shutters and opened up the full-height sash windows then sank into his wingback chair to watch the world go by: just him and his brother’s bottle of vintage brandy. This was the brightest part of the whole four-room, one-bedroom apartment. From here he had the best vantage point of the whole street and the park opposite. This was where he sat of a Sunday, armed with the full spread of newspapers and a long coffee that chilled as he waded through the pages and pages of newsprint but he drank it anyway.

But this afternoon it was just him and the bottle. Looking out at the quiet streets it seemed that even passers-by had absconded in sympathy, leaving him to sit and stare and ponder his predicament alone. But he was being ridiculous, just feeling sorry for himself. It was still early, not even seven, yet judging by the level of the remaining liquid in the elegant bottle he’d have been forgiven for thinking it was later. Despite himself, in an almost drunken haze he let his head fall back as he smiled, recalling the memory of the incredible excitement he had experienced getting into this unfortunate mess and pondering the trouble he was going to have getting out of it. In the wonderful Cognac-induced languor he could almost taste the JD on his lips just thinking about her.

Always the free spirit, at forty-one he was one they had begun to ask: ‘
Would you not find a nice girl and settle down
?’ But the very idea of it made him nauseous. He never dreamt of walking down the aisle, quite the opposite, but explaining that to his inquisitors was pointless. They wouldn’t understand, so instead of wasting his time he’d smile forlornly, lift his hand to his heart and declare that he hadn’t yet crossed paths with his soul mate. The notion that he wasn’t even looking was really none of their business.

His phone, cast aside earlier on the side table, rang out then vibrated for the umpteenth time but again he chose to ignore it. It had been going nonstop but Cormac was too busy thinking about her and now thinking about
him
. Thinking about Mark.

Chapter 2

The middle one of the three brothers, Rian was always both Ciara and Enya’s favourite. In their youth, when politics seemed to consume their lives, they found solace in each other and fun, somehow, in the endless packing of election envelopes around the dining-room table, walking the legs off themselves doing door drops and smiling saccharine smiles for the cameras at one chilly hustings after another. And, as they got older, he was the source of many boyfriends and unfortunately ex-boyfriends. But it worked both ways: neither tall nor handsome, he possessed a devilish charm that was a magnet for most if not all of the girls’ friends. It was, most agreed, his smile that reached the depths of his deep brown eyes and the unkempt tufts of chestnut hair that made up for his slightly smaller than average stature.

His sisters always wondered where he got his innate nurturing instinct from as, it seemed, neither of their parents had a caring bone in their bodies. Instinctively he stood up for his sister at the ‘family’ lunch, irked as always by the way his father provoked and bullied them.

“Leave her be, Dad,” he told their father as he needled and goaded her.

“
I beg your pardon?
” William Bertram blasted, apparently surprised by his son’s insubordination.

“You heard me,” Rian replied. “She’s only just in the door and you’re already on her case.”

“How dare you!” William turned to him with furrowed eyes and squared-off shoulders, preparing it seemed to ramp up to one of his usual high-volume lashings, but a glance at Rian’s fiancée Martha seemed to change his mind. Lowering his voice to a patronising hum, he said, “I’ll ask you to remember just who it is you are speaking to, boy.”

“Come on, come on,” Seb interceded, standing up to refill the wineglasses while throwing dagger eyes at his little brother. As the eldest in the family he commanded a level of respect from his siblings that was unspoken. “What do you think of the wine, Dad?”

Infuriated, Rian turned first to make sure Enya was alright, then returned his brother’s glare, hoping it spoke the words that were passing through his mind loud and clear. It was a bit late, he fumed, for Seb to be playing the protective brother. Seb, he assumed, had something to gain by shutting him up. Over the years, particularly when they were much younger, Rian had learnt the hard way that Seb never went out of his way for anyone except himself.

Comforted by the calming squeeze of Martha’s hand on his knee, he took a deep breath and allowed the moment to pass. And as happened every now and again, although less so recently, Rian found himself transported back to their boarding-school days where he and Seb, although brothers, were divorced from each other, both emotionally and empathetically.

Water flushed down his neck and filled his ears. It smelled of bleach, lemons and urine. He coughed and spluttered as it filled his nose and emptied into his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. They lifted his head up by the hair at the back. A moment’s respite, enough to spit it all out and gasp in some air. Then into the water again. In between, he could hear them laughing.

“One more time! One more time!” they squealed like sugar-crazed kids.

And so he was dunked again, closing his eyes to the white porcelain bowl just in time before the water rushed around his head.

“So, numb-nuts,” Fitzer said, hauling him out of the bowl, “who did you say was the boss around here?”

“You are,” Rian spluttered, spitting the remaining toilet
water out as he spoke, splashing his assailant in the face.

“Oewwww!” he moaned, wiping his face with his sleeve, the look of disgust intensified. “I didn’t hear you, Bertie!” he sang. “Say it again!”

“You are!”

“Still can’t hear you! Louder so we can all hear you.”

Rian opened his eyes to the cubicle and turned to his audience who giggled and jeered while he dripped and spat.

But before he could say it one last time someone whispered “Sketch!” urgently from the outskirts of the gathered crowd. “Sully on the loose!”

And like cockroaches in daylight they scattered in every direction. Fitzer, ever the ballsy lad, hung on to Rian’s soaked collar a little bit longer.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he whispered close into his ear then let him go. Rian flopped to the seat, not caring that the headmaster was on the prowl. It couldn’t really get much worse than Fitzer. Once he had you in his sights, well, that was it until he got bored or found someone else to torment. He sat in the cubicle and closed the door over, listening to the sound of the slow, heavy footsteps. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, emitting a high-pitched buzz that you could barely hear and hardly notice, but when you did it was the loudest noise in the room. In the distance the comforting sound of his two hundred or so schoolmates chattering in the dorms from across the hall filtered through the lightweight partition walls. He looked up from his seat, following the priest’s progress in his mind’s eye.

This isn’t my fault, he rationalised. I can’t get into that much trouble really. He counted the splats of once-sodden toilet-paper balls that had been fired over the years at the yellowing ceiling. The footsteps stopped at the door into the toilets. This, he knew, was where Sully had to choose: right to the dorms, left to the toilets or straight down the stairs to the classrooms. Rian held on tight to his breath for fear Sully with his rumoured bionic hearing would hear him pant. Deathly still, he waited to see which way the priest would go. But he couldn’t hear a thing. He stood up and stretched forwards towards the white melamine door, as if doing so would help him listen better. But it didn’t help. Still nothing. He must have gone down the stairs, Rian thought, because if he’d opened the door to the dorms he would have heard the increased volume of noise from inside. Just as he was about to sneak a peek out of the cubicle door it crashed in on top of him.